The commercial marketing of laundry detergent products often involves the use of distinctive product aesthetics to help differentiate one given product from other commercially available products of the same general type. Colored, e.g., dyed or pigmented, speckles are sometimes used to create such distinctiveness. Generally, speckles in detergent products should be larger than 400 microns to be easily visible to the consumer.
In a granular detergent context, suspension of colored speckles in the products is fairly straightforward. This is because the formulator is free to chose dye or pigment carriers which can be matched in density and particle size to the bulk detergent. However, in a liquid detergent context and especially with respect to non-aqueous liquid detergents, it is a challenge to stably suspend particles larger than 400 microns. The formulator must use materials which are not soluble in the non-aqueous liquid product yet are soluble in the laundry wash water. Materials which meet this criteria for speckles are generally salts. However, the density of most salts is significantly greater than that of the non-aqueous liquid detergents in which they are to be suspended. Thus, colored speckles made from salts tend to sediment or settle out of non-aqueous liquid detergent products. On the other hand, dye or pigment carrier materials having densities similar to non-aqueous liquid detergents are typically organic in nature and therefore are soluble in the non-aqueous detergent. This leads to solublization within the detergent product of colored speckles made with such organic materials. If density compatible organic materials are not soluble in the concentrated detergent product, they are frequently also insoluble in water, thereby leading to little or no solublization of the speckles in the wash water. This can, of course, cause negative results with consumers.
Given the foregoing, there is a continuing need to identify materials and procedures which can be used to suitably impart desirable aesthetic characteristics to non-aqueous liquid detergent products by means of incorporating visible colored speckles. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to formulate non-aqueous heavy-duty detergent compositions having aesthetics-improving suspended colored speckles therein.
It is a further object of the present invention to stably suspend such colored speckles in such liquid detergent products.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide speckles that impart desirable aesthetics to concentrated liquid detergent products but do not interfere with the laundering operations that use such products.
Surprisingly it has been found that there is a small class of materials that have the requisite properties to serve as dyed or pigmented speckle carriers and which can be used to achieve the forgoing objectives with respect to the liquid detergent products herein.